It is easy to write off 3D printing as a niche technology, best left to hobbyists or for businesses producing extremely specialised, one-off components. But having seen some of the latest products made with the technology, I think it is moving very quickly towards the mainstream. You can now produce incredibly intricate pieces on a home 3D printer, albeit a high spec one, and industrial 3D printers provide even more power, speed and performance. There are now more and more community spaces with 3D printers (like Makespace in Cambridge), and even some local copy shops have one, delivering another way of bringing the technology to the mass market.

So, why do I think 3D printing is going mainstream? Because it taps into three key trends:

1 PersonalisationIn our mass produced, brand-led world, we have an increasing a desire for personalisation. Many people want to show their individuality, and are willing to pay for it. So whether it is jewellery customised to fit your own body shape or a sculpture you’ve designed yourself, there is a market for 3D printed objects.

2 Need for precisionThe boundaries of the possible are being pushed back. Medical science can do things that were previously thought impossible, while miniaturisation is shrinking the size of everyday objects around us, while making them much more complex. 3D printing enables the creation of precisely made replacement bones for medical use, as well as significant parts of intricate jet engines. All of these are high value objects, but the same methods can be used on more mundane applications. Take spare parts for consumer goods – normally if something small breaks (such as the shelf bracket of your fridge), you need to buy a replacement from the manufacturer at an exorbitant price. And that’s if you can even track down the part. Now, it is technically possible to 3D print the replacement, and while this obviously infringes copyright, it will be difficult for the original manufacturer to find out, let alone prosecute, you.

3 Infrastructure in the CloudThe combination of the internet, the Cloud and smartphones provides a complete, cost-effective infrastructure to support 3D printing. You can take high resolution photos with your phone, upload them and have them turned into product plans by using the immense processing power available on the Cloud. Short of inspiration? You can find and download plans for just about anything to make yourself (unfortunately including guns) through a quick search.

So what markets will it disrupt? Recent announcements point to two that have real potential. As mentioned before, parts for jet engines are being made experimentally using 3D printing by both Rolls-Royce and academic researchers in Australia. As well as the ability to work to extremely fine tolerances, 3D printing also has the benefit of producing much less waste, as objects are built up, layer by layer, rather than carved out from a larger block of expensive material.

Secondly, and more in the consumer space, Argos has announced that it will run a trial that allows people to customise jewellery, both by adding messages and also changing the item’s dimensions. Previously the likes of the Royal Mail, Amazon and Asda have run 3D printing trials. Moving to more of a “make to order” model will help Argos in keeping stock costs down – and also help differentiate it against other retailers on the high street through exclusive products. Given that the likes of Argos have been hard hit by the rise of online shopping, it is a smart move that could well be expanded to other products.

Like many technologies, 3D printing will not only change existing markets, but also spawn completely new ones that have not yet been thought up. What is definite is that it provides brands and companies with a challenge – will the ability for complex customisation be a threat or an opportunity to their business?

As any honest iPhone owner will freely admit, they may be sleek, but they are actually rubbish for making and receiving calls. What they do provide is two things – a truly personal computer that fits in your pocket, and access to a global network of cloud-based apps. It is the mixture of the personal and the industrial that make smartphones central to our lives. We can monitor our own vital signs, and the environment around us through fitness and health trackers and mapping apps, and at the same time access any piece of information in the world and monitor and control devices hundreds or thousands of miles away. Provided you have a signal……….

Essentially the smartphone is a universal platform that companies can build on – whether it is a disruptive taxi business (Uber) or completely new ways of dating such as Tinder and Grindr.

So, based on what is on show at MWC, what are the next steps for the smartphone? So far it seems to split into two strands – virtual reality and the Internet of Things. HTClaunched a new virtual reality headset, joining the likes of Sony, Microsoft, Samsung and Oculus Rift, promising a more immersive experience. Sensors to measure (and control) everything from bikes and cars to tennis racquets are also on show. The sole common denominator is that they rely on a smartphone and its connectivity to get information in and out quickly.

It is easy to look at some of the more outlandish predictions for connected technology and write them off as unlikely to make it into the mainstream. But then, back in 2007, when Steve Jobs unveiled the first iPhone, there were plenty of people who thought it would never take off. The smartphone revolution will continue to take over our lives – though I’m not looking forward to navigating streets full of people wearing virtual reality headsets who think they are on the beach, rather than on their way to work…………

English: British school children in London, England (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Morgan complains that Britain has slumped in international education league tables, and has vowed to move the country up in rankings for maths and English. But ignoring the fact that children are already tested on times tables, I think she’s missing the point about modern education and the skills it teaches. Of course, children should know their times tables, and be able to read and write. These are basic skills that everyone should have.

But we are in an era of enormous change, and the skills that the workforce of tomorrow requires will be very different to those of today. Increased globalisation, the advent of the knowledge economy and greater technology are impacting on all jobs. Previously safe, middle income management occupations will be broken into smaller chunks and either computerised or outsourced, hollowing out the workforce so that what remains are high end, knowledge-based roles or more menial tasks.

What we need to do is prepare our children for this world by helping them to develop the skills that they require to work in this brave new world. A large proportion of today’s pupils will end up working in jobs that don’t currently exist, so you need to focus on three areas:

1. Learning to learnRather than simply teaching facts and tables, you need to instil in children the skills they need to keep learning. These range from problem solving, resilience and working as a team, to ensuring they have inquiring minds and are always pushing themselves.

2. Lifelong learningAlongside learning to learn, everyone needs to understand that education doesn’t stop when you leave school or university. Whatever field you are in, you’ll need new skills as your career evolves, so it has to be seen as natural to keep learning. The days of working for the same company for ever are long gone, and the days of working in the same role throughout your career are going the same way. So, people will have to make radical moves into new industries and careers, and that will require ongoing investment in learning new skills.

3. TechnologyThe UK government has re-introduced coding to the school curriculum, which is a major step forward in ensuring that everyone has the basic skills needed to understand and work with technology. While most jobs have required IT for a while, the spread of software into every corner of our lives means that those who understand and program computers will have a big advantage over those that just use them to type emails or surf the net. I’d like to see more government investment in coding for all, alongside schools, so that everyone learns the skills they need.

Don’t get me wrong, it is a laudable aim that every child should leave primary school knowing that 12×12 is 144 and how to use an apostrophe. But we need to be teaching our children a lot more than that if we want to nurture a workforce of self-starting, motivated and problem solving adults that can drive innovation and wealth for the country and wider society.

But how do you build a tech cluster? It may seem easy to do on the outside – set up some co-working spaces, provide some money and sit back and wait for the ideas to flourish, but it is actually incredibly difficult. This is demonstrated by the diverging fortunes of the locations of England’s oldest universities – Oxford and Cambridge. As a recent piece in The Economist explains, over the last few years Cambridge has added more well-paid jobs, highly educated residents and workers in general than its rival. This prompted a visit last October to the city from an Oxford delegation, with the leader of Oxford City Council admitting that “Cambridge is at least 20 years ahead of us.”

Given the longstanding competition between the two cities, it is easy for people in Cambridge to sit back smugly, pat each other on the back and congratulate themselves on a job well done. However, a better course of action is to take a look at what is behind Cambridge’s success, and see what can be done to improve things. After all, there are startup and tech clusters around the world – competition is global – so there’s nothing to stop entrepreneurs setting up in Silicon Valley, Munich, Paris or London rather than Cambridge.

I see five factors underpinning the success of any tech cluster:

1. Ideas and skillsThe first thing you need to build any business is obviously a good idea. Universities, particularly those involved in scientific research such as Oxford and Cambridge have plenty of these. But you need a specific type of person to be involved with the research – with a mindset that goes beyond academia and understands how a breakthrough idea can be turned into a viable business. You then need to be able to access the right skills to develop the idea technically, whether through commercial research or programming.

2. Support infrastructureThis is where Cambridge scores highly in being able to commercialise discoveries, through a long-established support infrastructure. The Cambridge Science Park opened in the 1970s, while the University has put in place teams to help researchers turn their ideas into businesses. Research-led consultancies, such as Cambridge Consultants, provide another outlet to develop ideas, as well as helping to keep bright graduates in the city. There is also a full range of experienced lawyers, PR people, accountants and other key support businesses to help companies form and grow.

3. MoneyObviously without money no idea is going to make it off the drawing board. Cambridge has attracted investment from local and international venture capital, and has a thriving group of angel investors, who can share their experiences as well as their funding. Due to the length of time Silicon Fen has been operating, investment has been recycled, with successful exits fuelling new startups that then have the opportunity to grow.

4. Space to expandCambridge is a small city, and the combination of its green belt, lack of post-industrial brownfield sites and an historic centre owned by colleges, puts a huge pressure on housing stocks. As anyone that lives in Cambridge knows, house prices are not far shy of London – but spare a thought for Oxford residents. In 2014 an Oxford home costs 11.3 times average local earnings, nearly double the British norm of 5.8 times. Additionally, as The Economist points out, there is space outside the Cambridge greenbelt for people to build on, with South Cambridgeshire Council, which surrounds the city, understanding the importance of helping the local economy. In contrast, Oxford has four different district councils, and a powerful lobby of wealthy residents who want to keep their countryside pristine, hampering housing development. That’s not to say that Cambridge is perfect, far from it. More can be done to improve transport links to reduce commuting time and to spread the benefits of Cambridge’s economic success.

5. ChampionsUltimately tech clusters are judged by the success of the companies they produce. And Cambridge, partly due to the longevity of the cluster, has created multiple billion dollar businesses, from ARM to Cambridge Silicon Radio. This not only puts the area on the map for investors, but attracts entrepreneurs who want to tap into talent and spawns new businesses as staff move on and set up on their own. You therefore see sub-clusters in particular areas of tech develop as specialists use their knowledge to solve different problems. This then further strengthens the ecosystem.

Tech clusters are slow to build and can’t be simply willed into existence by governments opening their wallets. They need patience, a full range of skills and co-operation across the ecosystem if they are to grow and flourish – as the relative fortunes of Cambridge and Oxford show.

The other factor to bear in mind is the notorious difficulty of getting mainstream workers to adopt collaboration tools, no matter how compelling the user interface or functionality. I remember trying to introduce an intranet into a relatively small organisation and just giving up as no-one wanted to use it, despite the benefits it brought.

So why is Facebook trying again? I can see three benefits for the company – though at least one of them has nothing to do with work……….

1. Add more subscribersFacebook claims over 24 million active daily users in the UK. This sounds impressive, but that is less than half the population. Obviously some of these holdouts are children, but I’d guess that a fair number are actually the very workers that Facebook At Work is aimed at. While you can keep your Work and personal Facebook accounts separate, I’m sure the company is hoping that a fair proportion of those using the platform in the office will be seduced into setting up a profile for out of hours use. So the social network will get an influx of new members, with the corresponding demographic data and potential revenues that this adds.

2. Easy to use interfaceAs I’ve said getting workers to use collaboration tools can be like pulling hen’s teeth. But for those already on Facebook I wager that the new At Work interface won’t be very different, encouraging its adoption. This, rather than functionality, will probably be the strongest selling point, when Facebook starts encouraging business use.

3. Spoiling for a fightWhile LinkedIn has been successful in many areas, there’s still a huge opportunity in the market. LinkedIn members at present tend to be in professional roles, with a large part of the world of work un-networked. The company itself realises this and is adding a wider range of job ads for roles such as checkout operators and delivery drivers, often directly linked from employer’s websites. Coming from the personal social network space, Facebook believes it can also fill this gap, with the first step being to get within the enterprise and cosy up to HR people through bridgehead initiatives such as At Work.

The benefits for Facebook are clear, but with the network effect being less important for businesses, I’m not sure what the advantages are for the enterprise. Worries about the confidentiality of documents have already been raised, and it would take some strong policing to avoid people slacking off and reading their personal Facebook timelines rather than collaborating internally. Watch this space to see if Facebook can move into the enterprise at its second attempt.

My very first blog post, four and a half years ago, talked about how social media had parallels with how people worked in medieval times. Essentially as a worker you attracted business through personal recommendation – do a good job and you’d get more work. Do a bad job for the Lord of the Manor, and you could well be clapped in irons. The industrial age changed all that, with companies mass producing goods or services and the personal link disappearing from many professions. No-one knew if you’d done a good job in your cubicle –the chance to express your individuality was simply not there in a lot of sectors.

The internet and smartphone apps mean a business can now find someone to do everything from research a new product to provide legal advice or consulting. Many routine tasks, even in knowledge-based businesses, can either be outsourced or digitised, so why go to the trouble and expense of employing someone to do it? And for those businesses that worry about quality, the platforms that deliver these people will have vetted them and you can read reviews from previous customers.

This is going back to the medieval model – with skilled artisans and craftspeople available to work directly for their end customers, rather than toiling in a factory or office for a regular salary. On the plus side, it delivers freedom and flexibility to those with the right skills. On the other hand, the vast majority of the medieval working population were itinerant labourers, turning up where there might be a job and hoping they’d get picked. Essentially, not much different to a modern zero hours contract, which is the flipside of the freelance economy.

There’s also multiple other challenges to address, both for freelancers themselves and the wider country. I know that as a freelance it is up to me to market myself, provide for my own retirement, sort out my work financial affairs and keep my skills up to date. If I don’t work, through illness or holiday, I don’t get paid. All of these are things that previously my employer would have provided for me as part of the contract between us. For me, that’s not too much of an issue, but for others (thinking again of zero hours contracts), what happens when they reach retirement age without private pension provision? The state will need to provide, where previously an employer did. Education will have to teach people to think in new ways, so that they can pick up skills throughout their working life, rather than training them to do the same thing for their whole career.

The other challenge is that the freelance economy needs corporate businesses in order to survive. Firstly, it is where it recruits many of its members, who’ve got their training within a large organisation and then decided to strike out on their own. Working for a large company not only provides a positive endorsement of quality on a CV but also gives access to an ecosystem of potential assignments within the company and its peers.

Secondly, freelances need larger companies (and those that work for them) as a market. Whether it is selling to organisations that have a specific skills gap or providing on-demand services to the salaried (in the US you can get everything from food, to taxis (Uber) and home cleaning at the touch of a smartphone screen).

Take away this infrastructure and you remove the market and the skills – in fact, essentially moving back to the medieval model. The main difference is now, with the internet, you don’t just have access to your village carpenter, but potentially millions of them all over the world. Like any change there will be winners and losers, but it is important to look at the negatives as well as the benefits before we fully embrace the on-demand world.

Intel must have thought it was onto a winner. Invest in building a new system to help Professor Stephen Hawking to speak, and not only does it get lots of media coverage (to help a good cause of course), but it also put one over on arch rival ARM by linking itself with Cambridge’s most famous living scientist.

nfare. All was going well until he tweeted to his 12 million followers that his phone had just erased all his data and rebooted itself – hardly the message of reliability that Samsung was looking for.

2. Motorola and David BeckhamAnother classic issue is a celebrity being caught using a competitor’s product. Sticking with sports stars, footballer Ronaldinho signed a lucrative deal with Coke – and was then caught on camera sipping from a can of Pepsi at a press conference. Not to be outdone, David Beckham lent his celebrity status to Motorola’s £14,000 Aura mobile phone, only to be snapped by paparazzi with an iPhone in his hand. He later claimed he’d been ‘holding it for a friend’.

3. Microsoft and Oprah WinfreyAt least Becks had an attempt at an excuse, unlike Oprah Winfrey. Paid to endorse Microsoft’s Surface tablet, she sent out a tweet extolling its virtues. Trouble was every tweet has the program and platform it was sent from automatically added on the bottom. So “Gotta say love that SURFACE!” was appended by the unfortunate words “sent via Twitter for iPad.”

I’ve always tried to keep my blog apolitical, criticising politicians from all parties equally. But, given the seriousness of the rise of UKIP, I’m suspending my impartiality for a week. Why? Put simply, I believe that Nigel Farage’s party is the biggest threat to face the UK (and in particular Cambridge) tech sector for many years.

First off, I don’t seriously believe that UKIP will garner enough MPs in the 2015 election to be part of a coalition. But what it has done is to shift the debate sharply to the right in two key areas (immigration and the EU), causing the Tories to talk about curbs on the free movement of workers and set a date for an in/out EU referendum. And given that the Tories are likely to be a central part of a future coalition that is potentially very damaging.

Aside from the general business problems that limiting immigration and leaving the EU would bring, it would hit Cambridge and the startup tech scene in four distinct ways:

1. EducationMany of the highly skilled individuals currently working at or building tech companies originally came from overseas to study in Cambridge. It is already more difficult to get a student visa, and making it harder will simply put off the brightest and the best, who will head elsewhere. And every clever student who goes elsewhere diminishes the wider Cambridge academic population and impacts its reputation and attractiveness to new students.

2. SkillsPretty much every Cambridge startup I’ve worked with has an incredibly diverse workforce, with employees from every corner of the world. They’ve chosen to come here, or have remained after study, and helped build amazing success stories with their skills. These are incredibly sought after and mobile people – limiting entry for them to the UK will mean they simply go elsewhere.

3. EntrepreneursCharles Wang, the founder of US software company Computer Associates once had a policy of only employing first or second generation immigrants in management roles. Wang himself was born in Shanghai and moved to New York when he was 8 years old. His reasoning was that immigrants had drive, entrepreneurialism and a desire to make something of themselves. Given they often arrived with nothing, they had no safety net, unlike established citizens who had never faced the dangers of real failure. Wang’s view is limited – I know plenty of driven, successful entrepreneurs from stable British families, but he has a point. Limiting immigration removes these potential entrepreneurs and the benefits they bring to their adopted country when it comes to jobs, taxes and the wider economy.

4. IdeasA tech cluster like Cambridge isn’t about individuals, no matter how skilled they are. It is about how they interact together and share and develop ideas, based on their own knowledge and experience. Diversity is key – if you bring together a group of people with similar backgrounds and experience you’re unlikely to get the range of ideas that comes from a wider group. Ideas play off each other and grow – take away diversity and you severely weaken the idea gene pool.

In answering my points, critics may well make one of two arguments. Firstly, that we’ll still let in the best, most skilled people – it is the jobless benefit seekers that we want to turn away. That may be true but will they want to come to a country that appears so unfriendly to outsiders? And, how do you spot the entrepreneur or Nobel Prize winning physicist to be? They could be the yet-to-be-born child of immigrants that initially came over here to work in agriculture or to escape persecution in their home country.

Secondly, people will point to the US, which has restrictive immigration policies, yet the biggest tech/entrepreneur sector in the world. The difference is that the US is a country built on immigration, with a culture that rewards risk-taking and encourages people to try again after failure. We still don’t have that attitude in the UK, and we need free radicals to act as a catalyst to help change things.

The last 20 years have seen a huge expansion in the Cambridge tech scene, driven by the combination of ideas, skills and experience of people from many different backgrounds. Cutting off or limiting the flow of entrepreneurs, workers, students and researchers from outside the UK would completely change this energy and dynamism. It would still survive, but would be weaker, more insular and less exciting. That’s why it is important to tell politicians of all parties that we want to encourage responsible immigration and EU membership to build a successful Cambridge tech sector that benefits us all.

There aren’t many people that actively like their bank. In the wake of the credit crunch and subsequent bail-out, bankers became the focus of people’s anger, being accused of recklessness at best, and outright fraud at worst.

At the same time the rise of technology has eroded the central position retail banks have in people’s lives. The majority of us do most of our banking online, with the main physical interaction happening through the screen of an ATM. We don’t know who our bank manager is – and they probably don’t have any leeway to get us a better deal on our mortgage.

So, it is unsurprising that new entrants have been looking at the sector. PayPal has grown to be the de facto way of paying for goods on eBay, and has now spread to lots of other sites. Its smartphone app now makes it easy for people to pay for goods on the high street as well. Bitcoin goes further, not just marginalising banks but the entire idea of a national currency.

However the real threat to banks is from brands coming into the market and pushing them into the background. The launch of Apple Pay in the US this week is a prime example of what might happen. By using your iPhone 6 (or Apple Watch) and Near Field Communications (NFC) you can simply pay by waving your device close to the payment reader. The built-in fingerprint sensor in the iPhone provides security (unlike traditional contactless cards), and the money is automatically debited from your bank account.

Of course, the money paying for the things you buy still comes from your traditional bank account. But in an era of low interest rates, essentially it turns the bank into a safety deposit box which stores your money, with the front-end, customer facing activity controlled and branded by Apple. That is partially down to the stringent regulations you need to meet to become a bank, and also down to where the highest margins are within the transaction.

Apple’s biggest competition may well come from Zapp, a service run by payments processor VocaLink that uses your existing mobile phone banking app and account for payments. Scheduled for launch in 2015 it has two big advantages over Apple and Pingit – it runs on all smartphones (unlike Apple Pay) and is seen as independent from an individual bank, although it is not yet supported by all of them.

The battle to control payments and the front end to banking promises to be fascinating. Will Apple’s brand triumph, despite (or even because of) its exclusivity or will Zapp’s wider approach succeed? How can both companies market themselves to overcome security fears and gain traction with a wider market beyond early adopters. Add to this that Google is rumoured to be buying PayPal to give it a foothold in the market, as well as other innovations yet to launch, and 2015 promises to be a busy year in the battle to replace your wallet.

The march of technology has radically changed many jobs. Factory work has become increasingly automated and roles that involved processing documents have been swept away. And as the cost of processing power falls, artificial intelligence improves dramatically and more and more information is available online, machines are becoming cleverer. From delivering online learning to scanning legal documents for relevant information or automated trading of shares, computer-based algorithms are increasingly capable of replacing people in more traditionally white collar roles.

Partial front page of the Los Angeles Times for Monday, April 24, 1922, displaying coverage of a Ku Klux Klan raid in an L.A. suburb (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Judging by recent stories, the next profession under attack is professional journalism. Already hit hard by the free model of the internet and the rise of citizen reporting, journalists now have to fight off robots with their eyes on their jobs. AP has just announced that it will use software from Automated Insights to produce 4,440 robot-written corporate earnings reports every quarter. The company argues that by letting the software write basic stories that essentially cover the financial details of the earnings announcement it frees up human reporters to write more detailed analysis pieces – and also ensures it can cover more companies without expanding its staff.

So, should journalists (and by extension, other writers such as PR people), be worried? There may be a lot of hand wringing about these developments, but I think there are three reasons that the human hack will survive, and even thrive.

1 Robot journalism is all about the factsAt present software is very good at searching for information, collating it and presenting it in a way that can be easily read. If you look at the AP or LA Times pieces they are never going to win any prizes for journalism, as they are basic stories that journalists would knock out because they had to, without really getting out of second gear. Software can do it much faster, freeing up their time for more interesting pieces.

2 Opinion and context is key to retain readersWe are bombarded by facts. What we crave are journalists who can put the facts in context, create a logical narrative, and most importantly add experience and opinion. While, technically, software could try and mimic this by analysing the complete works of Caitlin Moran and regurgitating it, it can’t get across personality in the same way. So real opinion will always beat computer journalism that stitches together opposing quotes when it comes to engaging the eyeballs of readers.

3 Investigative journalism is alive and wellReporters continue to work tirelessly to expose scandals, often with very little official data to work with. Whether it is uncovering irregularities with the expenses of MPs or child abuse in care homes, a large number of nationally and internationally important stories have only been published because of long term research and work by journalists or newspapers. Computers may well have been used to help in analysis and getting to the truth, but they did not lead the investigation.

So, before reporters worry too much about R2D2 stealing their jobs, it is worth understanding what readers actually value in an article. Yes, they want the facts, but more to the point they want opinions, colour and context, especially if it is personal and random – and at the moment, this is beyond the scope of software.

Why Revolutionary Measures?

Marketing is undergoing a revolution. The advent of social media provides the opportunity for one-to-one communication for the first time since the move to an industrial society. This blog will look at what this means for B2B PR and marketing, incorporating my own thoughts/rants and interests. Do let me know your feedback!

About me

I'm Chris Measures and I've spent the last 18 years creating and implementing PR and marketing campaigns for technology companies. I've worked with everyone from large quoted companies to fast growth start-ups, giving me unrivalled experience and ideas.
I'm now director of Measures Consulting, an agency that uses this expertise to deliver PR and marketing success for technology businesses.

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